The building work for the construction of a maxi-prison in Brussels, the biggest in the country, is due to start. It will be erected in Haren, in the northern suburbs of the city, not far from the NATO headquarters. A struggle has been going on for years against this great repressive enterprise by those who don’t conceal their hatred of authority in any form: leaflets, posters, books, videos, wild demos, occupations, concerts, meetings, talks… have all contributed to creating and spreading a hostility that has gone beyond words to materialize in dozens and dozens of direct actions.
Concrete acts of revolt have taken place not only in the most turbulent neighbourhoods of the capital but all over Belgium. So, for this reason alone they cannot be attributed to just a few hotheads. It is an « the exquisite elevation of the rebellion of the arms and the mind», that is worrying the Belgian authorities, having proved itself to be within the reach of every variety of rage and mind. As well as being determined not to accept the compromises of politics.
This explains why so many have busied themselves with every means to put a stop to this struggle against the future maxi-prison of Brussels. The recuperators of the (extreme) left – who can’t stand a self-organised struggle carried out autonomously without begging for political consensus and explicitly turned against all the authorities – haven’t been able to put a stop to it.
The journalists – who have recently been striving to transform the enemies of all prisons into the enemies of mankind, portraying them as bloodthirsty beasts determined to turn against anyone – haven’t been able to put a stop to it. The inquisitors in ermine who have tried unsuccessfully to divide the subversives into good protesters and bad saboteurs haven’t managed to put a stop to it. Uniformed and plain-clothes cops with their operations, even coming out with indecent proposals in search of collaborators, haven’t been able to stop it.
The latest “anti-terrorist” operation kicked off at dawn on Wednesday June 10, when police were unleashed to carry out raids and seize of every piece of paper, every publication, every leaflet or poster, every piece of writing and every computer found in the raided houses and at le Passage, the premises of the struggle against the maxi-prison.
When taken to the offices of the Federal Police, the anarchists refused to answer a single question and were released a few hours later. The mastermind of this brilliant operation is the king’s prosecutor Patrick De Coster. In spite of his surname, he definitely doesn’t love the rebels like Thyl Ulenspiegel. [in 1867 Charles De Coster wrote The Legend of Thyl Ulenspiegel and Lamme Goedzak, adventures of a Flemish prankster during the Reformation wars in the Netherleands.] His gloomy office will now be invaded with anarchist papers. A good omen, given that the office has already been set ablaze, in 2005.
In any case, Le Passage can do without them; it is already full of comrades, those in solidarity, accomplices… [11/6/15]
June 2015, from Finimondo